The artist, Mawanda ka Zenzile writes: ‘Ubugqi’ signifies a deeply profound, intuitive understanding and experiential knowledge of the sacred. Hence, we call someone who has undergone ubuGqirha training ‘iGqirha’. In recent times, art is slowly losing its sacredness, and ubugqi invites us back to this sacredness.

The term finds its closest equivalent in ‘marifat’ from Islamic mysticism, which corresponds to the English ‘gnosis’. It describes the direct, experiential knowledge of ultimate reality or the divine that can’t be gleaned from books or logic.

Ka Zenzile, an Itola (a seer) and a trained iGqirha, views the spark or glow of the neon light as a metaphor for profound awakening in contemporary art, in which neon text works have a prominent history, juxtaposed with indigenous Southern African mysticism. It is an encouragement to get out of one’s head, stop thinking ‘what does this mean’, and fully experience the moment and the work.

Mawande Ka Zenzile received his Master’s in Fine Art from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2019. He was awarded the Tollman Award for Visual Art in 2014 and the Michaelis Prize in 2013, and was shortlisted for the inaugural Norval Sovereign African Art Prize in 2022. In 2019, he was selected for the South African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Ka Zenzile has presented ten solo exhibitions with Stevenson between 2013 and 2025, as well as Uhambo Lukamoya at 31 Project, Paris (2023); an autobiographical project at VANSA, Cape Town (2011); and Crawling Nation at AVA Gallery, Cape Town (2009). His group exhibitions featured at Norval Foundation, FRAC Réunion, Kunsthal KAdE in the Netherlands, Iziko South African National Gallery, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean.

He has completed residencies in Paris, Dar es Salaam, and Norway, and has contributed to several academic conferences. He is also featured in Prime: Art’s Next Generation (Phaidon, 2021).